


No Place Like Home

by Medeafic



Series: Circus [4]
Category: Glee RPF, Star Trek RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Circus, Circus, F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-16
Updated: 2012-02-16
Packaged: 2017-10-31 06:34:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medeafic/pseuds/Medeafic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dianna and Lea start practicing together; not everyone approves.  Lea gets into trouble in town and Di, Zach and Chris get caught up as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Place Like Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Faberryspork (jaymamazing)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaymamazing/gifts), [pippin004](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pippin004/gifts).



> _________________________________________________________________  
> Warnings: Underage drinking/drunkenness; knives used to threaten someone; physical violence (punching); verbal sexual harassment; character expresses a negative view of foster care.  
> _________________________________________________________________

“Gee, I don’t know – are you sure this skirt is short enough?”  
  
“It  _has_  to be short. You’re going to be spinning around on a wheel and I don’t want any knives getting caught in it.”  
  
Di puts her hands on her waist and looks critically at Lea in the mirror.  
  
“Would you make Zach wear a tutu this short?”  
  
Lea smiles at that. Dianna likes it when Lea smiles; her whole face changes somehow, softens and becomes vulnerable. “Zach looks better in Daisy Dukes.”  
  
Dianna's new costume is vibrant pink and gold, a tight bodice connected to an increasingly-short tutu of boned satin undulations over ruffled netting. Zoë peers over Di’s shoulder, frowning. “I think it could do with another inch up.”  
  
“It doesn’t matter what  _you_  think,” Anton says rudely, pushing Lea and Zoë aside. They’re all stuffed into his trailer while he produces something new and amazing for Di to wear, out of the goodness of his heart – as he’s repeatedly reminded them. “God,  _move_. Although, actually—” He kneels and starts re-pinning the satin up another inch. “Buzz off and let a master work,” he says around the pin in his mouth. Zoë flops back onto the bed and continues flipping through a fashion magazine, but Lea watches Anton’s fingers closely.  
  
“Don’t you dare prick her,” she says, and then covers her mouth in consternation when the double-entendre hits her.  
  
Anton just snorts.  
  
Di catches Lea’s gaze in the mirror, but Lea flushes and looks away. Di goes back to staring at her new costume, the now-familiar confusion washing over her. Ever since the night Lea kissed her, they’ve acted as though nothing happened - or at least, Lea has. To save her from embarrassment, Di hasn’t brought it up.  
  
They’ve become close over the last few weeks, and have a daily routine. Now that Chris and Zach are practicing together, Di and Lea are taking turns with them to cook the company meals. Karl and Lea work surprisingly well as a team; Karl dealing with the meat and dairy and Lea the vegetarian proteins and salads. Di usually sits at a table nearby chopping interminable vegetables with the rest of the prep group, and listening to Karl and Lea discuss veganizing mother sauces, or how Lea perfected homemade seitan turkey.  
  
And so Di and Lea walk to breakfast or prep together, and after eating Lea goes to practice her tumbling and her knife-throwing. Dianna watches and takes photographs – or that’s all she’s been doing until today, when she’s going to take her first turn as target girl. Lea has been practicing with a dummy of Dianna’s height and weight on the spinning wheel, throwing again and again and counting under her breath. In the early morning, when Chris and Zach are in food prep and everyone else is asleep, or else just after the evening show when there’s no one in the Big Top, she secures a large sheet of paper over the dummy, spins the backboard, and attempts the Veiled Wheel.  
  
The first few days Lea impaled the dummy through the wrists and ankles and, once, worryingly, through the head. But she began to find her rhythm, and the impalements dwindled, stopped.  
  
Di finds it fascinating to watch her throw. Lea is focused, but full of nervous energy at the same time. It’s like watching lightning run through her every time she throws a knife, and Di finds herself expecting loud claps of thunder instead of the dull thud when they land, perfectly in line, down the wide white stripes of the board. She’s practicing her photography by taking pictures of Lea, fiddling with different settings to try to capture the movement, or sometimes the blur, if she’s feeling arty.  
  
Finally, Lea had declared herself ready to try throwing at Dianna. “Just the still wheel at first,” she’d said. “Until I get a feel for you.” She looked shocked at herself and removed herself speedily from Di’s trailer, calling, “Anton said he’ll make you a costume,” over her shoulder.  
  
This is something Di has learned about Lea: when she’s embarrassed, she doesn’t stutter or laugh or try to take back what she’s said, she simply removes herself from the situation. She turns her back and folds her arms or, if possible, leaves the area. Sometimes they’re getting on fine, and Di is talking idly or reminiscing about her mother, and Lea will say something a little strange or awkward, and instead of brushing it off or explaining what she means, she’ll leave abruptly. But Di is getting used to it, and in some ways thinks it’s not a bad way to deal with things.  
  
Then at other times, Lea will throw a tantrum about something insignificant, wait until she’s attracted a crowd, and preen at the interest. It’s wearing, but Dianna believes she can see beneath it, understand it. She tried to explain it to Chris once over a coffee, when he demanded to know exactly what Di liked so much about the Daisy. Things between Chris and Lea haven’t smoothed over completely, despite Lea caring for him after his panic attack. Now he’s angry with both Di and Lea for not agreeing to put aside the target girl idea.  
  
“She was nice to you,” Di pointed out. “When you had a—”  
  
“That’s completely different.  _Completely_.”  
  
“I’m just saying.”  
  
“She wants to  _throw knives_  at you Di. Why do you  _think_  I’m so mad?”  
  
“She throws knives at Zach,” Di said, but Chris would not be mollified.  
  
“I don’t know why the two of you  _defend_  her all the time. What’s so great about her that I’m not seeing?”  
  
Di had changed the subject. She’s not sure how to explain it, anyway. She likes Lea because Lea doesn’t treat her like a broken doll. Lea listens when Dianna speaks and takes her opinion seriously. Lea has stopped idolizing her quite so much, but – if Di’s being completely honest – the admiration in Lea’s face and eyes every time she looks at her is still flattering. No one has looked at Dianna that way for a long time.  
  
Lea might be difficult at times, but that makes her all the more equipped to deal with Di when  _she’s_  being difficult. Which, Dianna knows, she can be. Chris has had to put up with it for long enough; she’d thought he’d be grateful someone else was doing some of the heavy lifting. But when she says that to Chris, he gets that saintly expression that makes Di want to slap him, and tells her that she’s no trouble, no trouble at all.  
  
So it’s a continuing source of tension in her life that while Chris and Lea are more polite with each other, they’re still frosty. Lea has kept her promise and hasn’t said a word against Chris, but Di can read it in her eyes every time she looks at him. A lot of the time they share a meal table with Zach and Chris, and it’s all that Di can do to keep the conversation flowing sometimes. Zach helps, but the strained air seems to affect him far less than it does Dianna. He’s oblivious to the atmosphere sometimes, chatting away about trapeze training.  
  
Di wonders sometimes whether that’s bothering Lea as well. Zach is so excited about flying that he rarely talks about anything else. But when she asked Lea about it in a roundabout way, Lea just shrugged, and said, “Zach hasn’t been this enthusiastic about performing for a long time. It’s nice to see him so happy. And I have you now.”  
  
And since Lea also seems happiest when she’s performing, Dianna now finds herself trying on a new costume, hand-made by Anton, and wishing it would afford a little more coverage to her butt. She’s not so sure about her rear view since she’s stopped being so active. But Lea’s gaze keeps flitting down her body, and pulling up resolutely to hover around Di’s face. Zoë, on the other hand, unashamedly appraises Di’s legs and then goes back to her magazine. Zoë is nothing if not upfront.  
  
One night before Di’s accident, after drinking far too much in a town where there was nothing to do but watch TV or mess around, Di and Zoë had ended up kissing on Zoë’s bed. But Di was too far gone on piña coladas, and they spent the rest of the night in the bathroom, Zoë holding Dianna’s hair back for her as she retched into the toilet. It was never going to happen again between them after that, because there are few things in the world less sexy than vomit noises, Di figured. Besides, Zoë was definitely more interested in dick, and always would be. And so they just giggled about it, and that was that.  
  
For Di, though, it was more than just an aborted experiment. It had started her wondering. She wished that they’d gone through with it, so at least she’d know one way or the other. She watched Chris extra-closely for a while after that, wondering if she could broach the topic with him, ask him how he’d known about his own preferences. Wondering if it was something that ran in the family. Wondering what it meant for her future, if anything.  
  
She wondered about it until the accident, and after that her thoughts revolved only around recovery, pain, sorrow, loss. She hasn’t even had a self-provided orgasm in the time since, either because she’s never alone or because the pain in her back and across her shoulders stops her well before completion.  
  
But now: Lea. Di catches her eye in the mirror again, and they hold each other’s gaze.  
  
“You look beautiful.”  
  
“Thank you.” Di looks herself over again. Anton has finished pinning, and is quickly stitching around the hemline. He stands up to gauge the effect.  
  
“It’ll do for now, and I’ll run it through the sewing machine tomorrow. It’s weird seeing you suited again.” ‘Suited’ is John’s term. It always makes Dianna feel like a superhero, and she grins at Anton.  
  
“It’s been too long.” She spins and looks back over her shoulder to see the back. “You sure my butt’s covered?”  
  
“Your butt’s fine,” Anton says, smacking it. Sometimes Di worries that she’s going to develop the family ass along with the fluid sexuality.  
  
“Chris and Zach will be with Karl now for dinner prep,” Lea says, checking her watch. “I’ll go set up.” There’s no show this evening, a Monday. Anton has been allowed back in the ring now, although Bruce has banned him even  _mentioning_  the Cossack drag. Bruce was not very supportive of Dianna getting on Lea’s wheel, either, but he’d buckled under a barrage of outrage and arguments from the two of them.  
  
“Be careful,” he’d said at last. “ _Very_  careful.”  
  
It makes Di uncomfortable that they’ve decided to keep this quiet from Chris, but he’ll just make a fuss and she’d rather present it to him as a  _fait accompli_. Besides, the rest of the troupe hasn’t breathed a word to him either, so she’s pretty sure she’s in the right. It’s for the best. Really.  
  
She’s not sure how much Zach knows, although she overheard him arguing with Lea once about not respecting family ties. By the time Di got close enough to listen properly, Lea had stormed off.  
  
“You know, I think we should make this a corset,” Anton says. “Would that work with your back? Anyway – we don’t have time right now, so I’ll just sew you in.” He deftly stitches up the back. “ _Do not_  try to pull it off over your head later.  _Do not_  try to rip the stitches open.  _Do not_  get someone else to hack at them for you. Come to  _me_  and  _me_   _alone_ , and I’ll cut you out.”  
  
“You sure about this?” Zoë asks Di, not even looking up from her magazine.  
  
“I’m sure. Lea knows what she’s doing.”  
  
“I meant…Chris.”  
  
Di ignores that. She gives herself one last look in the mirror. “Alright. Let’s do this.”  
  
  
***  
  
  
The wheel is set up in the practice ring at the back of the Big Top, comfortably away from where Chris might be at this time of day. But when Di sees it, with its white stripes and handgrips, it looks a whole lot smaller now that she’s actually going to get up on it. Uncomfortably small.  _Tiny_. Lea is completely focused and confident, though, which helps. She and Zoë help Dianna step up onto it and strap her in around the waist.  
  
“I know it feels dangerous, but it’s really not,” Lea assures her. “Well. It  _is_. But I know you trust me. You’ve seen me practicing.”  
  
Di just nods. She’s  _terrified_ , and wonders if this is anything like a panic attack, but then feels guilty for comparing.  
  
Lea pats Di’s hand, clenched into a tight white fist around the handgrip. “Let’s get it over with. First time’s always the worst. Do you want a blindfold?”  
  
“No!”  
  
“I just thought it might be easier – sorry.” Lea backs away, looking nervous now, which Dianna could do without seeing. Maybe she’ll close her eyes. “Do you want me to do one and then see how you feel, or just—”  
  
“Just throw them all,” Di calls back, feeling increasingly desperate. “And  _please_  stop talking about it. Just do it.” She does close her eyes to prepare herself. Tries to conjure up the same concentration she felt before flying, poised on the bar to jump, judging the time of Chris’s swing.  
  
She’s just taking her next breath when there’s a breeze down her body and several  _thunks_. When she opens her eyes, Lea and Zoë are staring at her.  
  
“Was that it?” She looks either side at the thick white lines, and yes – ten knives, perfectly aligned. The last one, next to her head, is still shuddering from the force. “Wow.” It’s one thing to watch Lea’s skill, and quite another to be in the firing line.  
  
Lea walks up and starts pulling the knives out of the wood. “What do you think?”  
  
The sheer danger of it hadn’t really occurred to Dianna before – Lea is a pro, so she wasn’t expecting things to go wrong, but…  
  
She’s feeling the same rush she felt when her hands left the bar, and she spun out into thin air, the knowledge of the danger and the knowledge that Chris would be there to catch her – it’s overwhelming for a moment, and she rubs a hand over her forehead to hide her eyes. She’s scared that she might cry, but it’s not sadness that she’s feeling.  
  
It’s a fierce joy. She’s taken a risk again, finally, and come out on top.  
  
“Di?” It’s Zoë. “Is your back okay?” Both she and Lea are starting to look worried. Di gives her most dazzling smile.  
  
“Yes. My back is fine. I love it. Lea, try throwing while I’m spinning now.”  
  
Lea’s face lights up, but Zoë remains cautious. “You should get used to the spinning before any knives are thrown. Trust me. I’ve been a target girl before, when I was starting out.”  
  
“I used to do a triple salto in mid-air,” Di snaps. “I think I can handle spinning in one place on a backboard.”  
  
Zoë shrugs. “I’m not criticizing, I’m just offering my professional opinion.” She and Lea check the waist buckle again, and then secure her around the wrists and ankles.  
  
“Zoë’s right,” Lea says, once they’re done. “Try spinning first, make sure you’re okay. Make sure it doesn’t hurt your back.”  
  
Di is getting close to snarling at them. “Fine. Just get on with it.”  
  
She’s glad they talked her into it, though, because it doesn’t feel anything  _like_  the flying trapeze. They spin her for ten seconds and then slow her down, waiting for her reaction.  
  
“You look a little green,” Lea says, when Di doesn’t speak.  
  
“Pale pistachio,” Zoë agrees, scrutinizing Di’s complexion.  
  
Di takes a deep breath. “Give me a second.” She just needs to feel like her stomach has stopped flip-flopping around inside her. “Okay. Again.”  
  
After five minutes of spinning and stopping, Di is getting used to it. The nausea abates. Her back feels achy, but not painful. She’s been getting better lately, anyway – the physios were right, moving around more is helping her recovery now instead of hindering.  
  
“Let’s do it,” Dianna says to Lea. “Throw the knives.”  
  
Lea nods, and takes up her position. “Zoë? Spin her.”  
  
Zoë hesitates. “Di, if Chris finds out about this,” she starts, but Dianna gives an exasperated sigh.  
  
“Chris is not my goddamn keeper.” Zoë bites her lip. “ _Spin_  me!” Di insists.  
  
Zoë gives in, spins the wheel and skips out of the way. Lea throws immediately, and her knives are accurate, as perfectly aligned as before. They repeat the process three times, and Dianna feels the same thrill each time.  
  
“We could try a Veil,” she suggests. “Just with a still wheel, I mean.  Like you did with Zach at your exhibition?”  
  
“You think?” Lea asks. “I guess, if you’re sure. The light’s as good as it’s going to get, and we have to pack up soon.” They only have a limited time where Chris is guaranteed-preoccupied with dinner prep.  
  
Dianna looks up into perfect blue. There’s one low, fluffy cloud in the distance. The sun is hot but gentle today, as though it’s tempered by the sapphire sky. She shuts her eyes and lets the warmth seep into her skin. Remembers the day she fell, when the weather was similar. One or two extra clouds before they walked into the Big Top for a practice session, but the same sort of muted heat and lazy languor in her limbs as she climbed the ladder.  
  
She survived that day. She has no reason to think she won’t survive this one.  
  
“Yeah,” she says. “Let’s do it. If I’m going to get skewered, it might as well be on a day like today.”  
  
Zoë drops her face into her hands. “Does Bruce know about this?”  
  
“Of course,” Lea says.  
  
“Well – hold on. I’m going to get him.”  
  
Di has never seen Zoë look so nervous, not even when Ulysses reared unexpectedly in the ring and nearly threw her. She’d just worked it into the act. Dianna watches Zoë’s long legs flying across the campground, and then turns her face to Lea.  
  
“It’s okay. I trust you.”  
  
She’s tied snug and secure to the board, surrounded by ten blades, and she feels completely safe. She feels like the dawn has arrived after deepest night. She feels like she used to feel with Chris, like she and Lea are forging a bond between them that she always took for granted with her brother – until the day she fell.  
  
Zoë is back just as Lea pulls out the last knife, tugging at Bruce’s hand and pulling him along. And behind him, a bevy of curious sightseers, headed by John. Di scans the crowd nervously, but Chris and Zach must still be with Karl. It’s coming up to five, but with luck they’ll still have a half-hour or so before Chris is released from the mess tent. Di doesn’t want him to see this, but whether it’s because she thinks he’ll try to stop her, or have another panic attack, she’s not sure. Perhaps a little of both.  
  
Lea, captivated by the crowd, is in her element. She makes a sweeping bow. “Ladies and gentlemen, the lovely, the amazing, the talented Dianna Agron.” The applause hits Di right in the chest – she hasn’t heard it for so long, not for her. “And now I must ask for silence from the audience,” Lea warns, and Zoë steps up to help spin.  
  
The company stills, stop whispering to each other and watch with wide eyes. Lea makes her way to the wheel and puts up the paper, veiling Dianna’s body from view.  
  
“Are you sure?” she asks quietly.  
  
“Let’s give them a show.” All Di can see is blank white ahead and grass, forest, sky, Zoë’s worried face to the side. She closes her eyes, controls her breathing.  
  
It’s over in seconds, and she hears the crowd roaring with delight when Lea rips off the paper and shows her accuracy. Dianna’s head lifts and she feels a fierce pride, even though she’s not doing anything, not performing. But her courage and her trust – those are what the troupe is cheering for, she realizes, when Lea asks her if she’s okay.  
  
“I am one hundred percent fantastic. I haven’t felt like this since flying.”  
  
Lea’s joy is palpable. “We’re going to be  _amazing!_ ” She throws her arms up in the air and laughs at the sky. “You’re incredible, Dianna. So brave.” The crowd starts clapping again, John hollering something unintelligible. Bruce is grinning ear to ear and slapping all the shoulders he can reach before people nimbly skip to the side.  
  
It’s a heady mix of adoration and admiration. Di says, “Let’s go again. Show them it’s no fluke.”  
  
“Is your back—”  
  
“My back is  _fine_ , and will continue to be fine until I say otherwise, and then I’ll go rest like a good little sick girl.” She didn’t mean to sound so irritated, but when even Lea’s asking her about it…  
  
“Sorry,” Lea says quickly. “We’ll do it again.” She removes the knives, smoothes over a fresh sheet of paper, and Di stares again into the white. But then the crowd murmurs, and Di turns her head a little, sure that something’s going on.  
  
“Hey!” someone calls, and Di feels her heart sink.  
  
“Oh,  _fuck_ ,” Lea says quietly.  
  
“What is going  _on_  here?” It’s Chris, his voice low and dangerous, and he’s close by now. Probably staring Lea down a foot or two away, Di thinks. She doesn’t know whether she’d rather be able to see or not, and tries to shrink a little. Maybe he won’t notice…  
  
Too late. The paper is ripped down and she’s nose to nose with her brother, feeling the same guilty feeling she felt that time she and Zoë snuck out to get hammered at a townie bar when she was seventeen, and came back to find Chris waiting up for her.  
  
She sets her shoulders. She’s not a kid anymore. “You’re ruining the act,” she says coolly, and she can see it’s just making him madder.  
  
“ _You_ —” Chris points a finger at her, but then turns sharply on Lea. “No,  _you_. This is you, isn’t it?”  
  
Lea folds her arms, and Di cringes. Chris hates that gesture.  
  
“If you mean this is me treating Dianna how she wants to be treated, then yes. Yes, this is me.”  
  
Zach jogs up and puts a hand on Chris’s shoulder. “Let’s go somewhere private to discuss this.”  
  
But Chris shakes off his hand and glares at him. “And  _you!_  You must have known about this and you didn’t  _tell_  me?”  
  
Zach hesitates too long in his reply, his eyes flicking between Chris and Lea. It’s enough time for Chris to reel back around to Dianna, and she feels like a butterfly pinned to her board, helpless under his gaze. She’s still tightly bound. Chris looks her up and down, furious, and starts unbuckling her.  
  
“You stupid, stupid  _moron_.” He wrenches the buckles open and helps her off the wheel, gentle as he offers his arm for her to hold on to. But Di pulls away from him as soon as she’s on the ground again.  
  
“You’re making a scene,” she says, smoothing over her tutu, front and back.  
  
“ _I’m_  making a scene?”  
  
She can tell he’s still working himself up, and Bruce is coming over now, looking concerned. She glances at Lea, and is reminded of  _her_  method of dealing with this sort of situation. Di walks off, knowing that Chris will follow, and heads back to her trailer.  
  
They’ve collected Lea and Zach as well, trailing one behind the other like a desultory parade. They arrive back at her trailer, and she goes in, pulls out a beer from the fridge and twists off the cap. Chris barges in straight after her and grabs it out of her hand.  
  
“You’re  _drinking_?” His voice is rising to a shriek. “On all your  _medication_?”  
  
“No, I was getting it for you.” Di has been keeping a six-pack in there ever since she and Lea started practicing. She’s always known this day would come, and she’s always assumed alcohol would help. It doesn’t seem to, though; Chris is pouring it down the sink, his face red and his mouth a thin, down-turned line. “Chris, come on. You need to calm down. It’s not that big a deal.”  
  
Lea steps inside, followed by Zach, and the trailer feels less cozy, more cramped.  
  
“Not that big a  _deal_? She was throwing  _knives_  at you, Dianna.  _Blind_. That’s a fucking  _huge_  deal.”  
  
“Chris, man, come on,” Zach says uneasily. “Inside voices. Calm blue ocean.”  
  
“Don’t you even talk to me,” Chris snarls, whirling around to face him. “You knew about this and you sided with  _Lea_.”  
  
“I’m not siding with anyone.” Zach holds his hands up in a soothing gesture, keeps his voice even. “I just don’t think yelling is going to help anything right now. You’re right; I should have told you, but I didn’t think it was my place. I’m sorry.”  
  
“We’re having a  _conversation_  later,” Chris tells him darkly. He looks at Lea. “And  _you_  – you can stay away from my sister from now on. She’s not doing any of your stupid-ass stunts to make you look good.”  
  
Di indignantly tries to interrupt, but Lea’s temper has already sparked. “I’ll do whatever Dianna wants. And she wants  _me_. I mean—” She stops, her hands halfway to her face, as though trying to cram the words back into her mouth.  
  
Chris takes a closer look at her. “Is  _that_  what this is about?” He starts laughing, incredulous. “You’re shit outta luck, honey. Di’s straight as an arrow.”  
  
“Don’t you  _dare_ —” Di starts, but Lea is already spitting out words.  
  
“ _You_  don’t get to decide Dianna’s life for her, and besides, you’ve  _already_  screwed it up.”  
  
“What in the hell is  _that_  supposed—”  
  
“You dropped her!” Lea screams, and it’s so loud that both Zach and Di flinch. “You.  _Dropped_. Her. You’re dangerous and unprofessional and I don’t want you working with Zach, because you’ll end up dropping him too, and maybe you won’t be so  _lucky_  this time. Maybe  _this_  time—”  
  
“Lea!” Dianna’s voice rings out and everyone looks at her, surprised. “You do  _not_  speak to my brother like that. Ever.”  
  
Lea turns and crashes out of the trailer. Zach looks at the door and back at Chris, but just shakes his head and leaves as well, closing the door gently behind him. In the distance, Di hears a car start up and squeal out of the campground, Zach shouting something.  
  
She turns to Chris, who seems astonished.  
  
“Wow,” he says. “Thanks. I was starting to think—”  
  
“Oh, you keep thinking whatever you’re thinking. You’re my brother. My dumbass, annoying, stupid brother, and right now, I love you, but I don’t  _like_  you. I told Lea off because you’re my family, but that doesn’t let you off the hook. How  _dare_  you treat me like that?”  
  
Chris stiffens, and shoves his hands in his pockets. “Fine. I’ll get out too. That’s the pattern, right? You get pissed and throw me out of the trailer?”  
  
Dianna reaches out and grabs him. “You’re not leaving.” He looks hopeful, until she continues, “Not until Zoë and John and the rest of the peanut crunchers are gone. They’ll be hanging around waiting for the drama and I’m not giving them any more, not today.  _No!_ ” She grabs him again as he pulls away. “You  _owe_  me for humiliating me like that in front of everyone. So you stay here until I tell you that you can go.”  
  
They have a glaring competition for a few minutes, but Di’s won them since they were kids, and she wins again. Chris slumps at the kitchenette table, scowling at the Formica, and Di makes them both a cup of tea. Her hands are shaking with adrenaline so that the fine china cups rattle as she takes them to the table. Chris deigns to drink his after it’s gone half-cold.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he says, after he’s swallowed it down.  
  
“You’d better be.” Dianna leans forward on the table. “And you’d better apologize to your hot boyfriend, too, before he picks up with someone new.”  
  
“He’s not my boyfriend. I don’t know what he is.”  
  
“Whatever.”  
  
“I’m only going to say this once more, okay? I wish you wouldn’t do it – play target for Lea.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“Dianna.” His voice is quiet, and she looks up at him, sees despair and fear in his face. “You’re all I have left.”  
  
It’s difficult to swallow against the lump in her throat, but she does, and says, “Nothing’s going to happen. Lea would never…and besides,” she adds, “I’m not all you have left. You have everyone here.”  
  
He doesn’t speak.  
  
“I’m not asking permission,” she tells him. “You don’t own me.”  
  
“I don’t  _want_  to own you. I just want to protect you.” He coughs, clearing his throat. “But I suck at that, too. I only had one job in the whole world – to catch you. And I dropped you.”  
  
Dianna doesn’t want to talk about that. Besides, there’s nothing to talk about. Nothing will change the past. She shrugs and says, “You know, I miss the flying, but I miss the feeling more; taking a risk. We both knew it was a risk, what we did. Most days we came out on top. Then one day we didn’t. But when I was on that wheel today I felt like I was  _living_ again, instead of  _enduring_. So I’m doing it, no matter what you say, and I’d appreciate your support.” She’s a little breathless when she finishes.  
  
Chris blinks frantically, and Di focuses on her teacup, part of a set their mother left her that had belonged to  _her_  mother. The white bone china looks as fragile as the whole afternoon has felt.  
  
“Okay,” Chris says. “Okay.”  
  
Di relaxes, the tension leaving her body, and feels the customary ache begin to take its place. Chris spins his teacup round and round in the saucer until she makes an annoyed noise. “Sorry,” he says. “Habit.” He stops, and sighs. “I  _should_  probably apologize, huh? To Zach? And…”  
  
“Yes. And I’ll have to apologize to her too, whenever she gets back.”  
  
Chris shoots her a look, which she ignores. “You and Lea. What’s up with that?”  
  
Di slumps back in her seat, feeling tired. Her back hurts, and she’s exhausted mentally too, fighting with all these people that she cares about.  
  
“I’m not sure what’s up with that,” she says to Chris. “Can you grab my meds for me?” He sets them out for her, and a glass of water. She chokes them down, Chris at her shoulder, and then he strokes her head.  
  
“You do seem to be doing better these days, kiddo.”  
  
“You think Lea worked some kind of magical healing trick?”  
  
Chris grabs a glass of water himself and sits down opposite her again. “I was thinking more that she bugs so bad you’re getting exercise running away from her.” But he grins.  
  
“That’s not nice.” She smiles back. “And definitely not true. I know she has some rough edges, but when she forgets about herself, she’s surprisingly nice.”  
  
“Karl likes her.  _Karl_.”  
  
“I know, right?”  
  
“They bonded over tofu.” Chris runs his finger through a few drops of spilled water on the table. “You know, if you ever want to ask me about…stuff…you can.”  
  
Di groans. “This is one time when having no parents is  _really_  awkward.”  
  
“Yeah. But just…you know…”  
  
She taps a fingernail on the table, wondering where to start. “Doesn’t it seem…I should know by now. I’m twenty-one. If I was going to, uh.  _Go_  that way – shouldn’t I know by now?”  
  
“It’s not like the Universe has a stopwatch on you. Like, if you don’t  _know_  by twenty-one, you’re automatically straight for life? Also, newsflash: bisexuality exists.” He drops his eyes to her tapping fingernail, a little shy.  
  
Dianna stops tapping. “Alright. Hit me. How did you know you were gay?”  
  
Chris chuckles and flushes a little. Di does as well. It’s going to be an uncomfortable conversation, but at least the atmosphere is light-hearted.  
  
“First of all, I don’t know if I’m gay. I’ve been with girls before, just—” He clears his throat. “Just not for a long time. I used to be more fifty-fifty, but as I’m getting older I guess I’m more interested in…and it’s just…it’s easier with guys sometimes. Less complicated.”  
  
“For your small brain,” Dianna adds, nodding in agreement. She smirks at his outraged expression. “Kidding! Sorry. So you like Zach because he’s easygoing?”  
  
“Sort of. Zach’s not complicated, but he’s pretty full-on. I don’t know. I feel like we’ve fallen into this exclusive  _thing_  without even thinking it through. Sometimes I wonder if he only likes me so much because I’m here, and it’s easy and available. Because  _I’m_  easy and available. And – and because I’m teaching him trapeze.”  
  
This is the most emotionally honest discussion Di has ever had with her brother, and she’s fascinated. “How do you feel about him? Do you love him?”  
  
“Jeez, Di, come right out and ask me, why don’t you?” But she waits, expectantly, until he throws up his hands. “Christ, I don’t know. I like him a lot. In guy terms, I guess that’s pretty serious, but I haven’t known him that long. We get on well, and I mean, you’ve  _seen_  him. Hot as hell.” Di snorts. “Aren’t we supposed to be talking about you?”  
  
She toys with her teacup handle. “I’m not sure how I feel about Lea. I started wondering a while ago if I was totally straight, but I don’t know for sure. I care about her, a lot. I’m not sure  _how_ , though; whether it’s a friendship thing or gratitude for making me feel like a regular person or just a stupid crush or…more.”  
  
“Aren’t girls supposed to be all in touch with their feelings?”  
  
“Dude, you’re the one with the—” She stops.  
  
Chris flicks water at her. “You can say it. The panic attacks?”  
  
“I’m sorry. It’s not something to joke about.”  
  
“They’re a lot better. I haven’t collapsed in a shivering heap for, oh, two days now.”  
  
“Seriously? Because maybe you should go see a—”  
  
“No,  _not_  seriously,” Chris says, exasperated. “I haven’t had one since that time that everybody saw, okay?” He thinks for a minute and then says, “So…it’s pretty frustrating with people acting all weird around me, asking how I’m doing. Is that maybe an iota of how you feel sometimes?”  
  
Di gives a small, slightly bitter smile.  
  
“Damn,” Chris says. “Sorry.”  
  
“I’m used to it. Besides, I’m getting better now. Much better.”  
  
They chat some more, about Greenwood’s, Bruce’s plans, about their mom, and even a little about their dad, until the light outside has changed from bright afternoon to a still-light summer evening.  
  
“You think we’re safe?” Chris asks.  
  
“I think an hour is enough to bore John.”  
  
When Chris opens the door, Zach is hanging around outside, his face intense. “Sorry. I wasn’t listening or anything.”  
  
“Wouldn’t have heard much if you were,” Chris says, leaning in the doorway. Di can tell he’s smiling from the tone of his voice. “I’m sorry for what I said before. I wish you’d told me, but…yeah. We’ll leave it at that. But in the future I’d appreciate more of a heads up than seeing you and Karl make  _oh fuck_ faces at each other. Okay? Di’s my sister, so—”  
  
“I’m sorry, too. Really. And you were right, we need to have a conversation later. But Lea’s gone. Tore out of here in her car and into town.”  
  
Di comes to the door. “We heard. Blowing off steam or something?”  
  
“Yeah, blowing off steam. Can you imagine what blowing off steam means to Hurricane Lea?”  
  
Dianna takes only a second to picture it. “Let’s go.”  
  
  
***

 

Chris and Zach are already in jeans, but Di can’t take off her costume without finding Anton. Even now, she’s not willing to risk cutting the seam and face his wrath. To save time, she pulls on black leggings under the flounced skirt and adds a fitted faux-leather jacket on top. Zach and Chris raise eyebrows when they see her, and she stops, hands on hips and asks, “What?”  
  
“It’s a bit Ballerinas Gone Wild, that’s all,” Zach says. “Come on, we’ll take my car. We might be able to find her before anyone else here notices she’s stormed off. I swear to God, the drama that girl causes…”  
  
“Why didn’t you just go after Lea right away?” Dianna asks as they pile into the car. “She’s got a big head-start on us.”  
  
“I didn’t exactly feel like a high-speed chase, Di. And she needed time to cool off. I thought about asking someone else to come with me and help look, but…”  
  
“But you didn’t want anyone else to know,” Chris supplies from the back. His knees are pressed into Dianna’s seat, but he insisted she sit in the front rather than crawl awkwardly into the back.  
  
“We’re on thin enough ice as it is,” Zach says. “I know Lea can rub people the wrong way sometimes—” Chris snorts. “—but she needs stability. We need to stay with Greenwood’s for as long as we can. I thought maybe, if we proved ourselves, we might get taken on as permanent.” His voice is even, but it strikes Dianna then how unfair it must seem to the Daisies that they’re the only contractors at Greenwood’s.  
  
“Let’s just find her first,” Chris says. “We can worry about her reputation later.”  
  
It’s a big town, and Lea’s not answering her phone. It takes them two hours to find her car outside a seedy bar. When they enter, Dianna half-wishes that they’d missed this, at least, because Lea is up on the bar in her bra, whirling her top around over her head and singing along to the music.  
  
“Is that  _Lea_?” Chris asks.  
  
“Is that… _Britney Spears_?” Zach looks horrified.  
  
Lea is singing wholeheartedly into a microphone, slurring her words, but Di can recognize a few phrases until Lea screams, “I can’t see the fucking prompter, get out of the way!”  
  
“This has gone far enough,” Zach says grimly, and starts pushing through the crowd. Chris follows him, while Di hovers anxiously near the door. A few guys nearby turn to stare at her, one in particular leering unpleasantly.  
  
“Hey, sweetheart. Nice tutu.”  
  
Di crosses her arms over herself and ignores them.  
  
“You one of those circus freaks, like your friend up there? You gonna give us a show too?”  
  
She’s just thinking of an exit strategy when she sees Zach yank Lea down off the bar and sling her over his shoulder. He makes his way back towards the door, and deposits Lea next to Di. “Let’s go.”  
  
“Where’s her top?” Di asks, and Zach curses, looks back into the crowd.  
  
“We don’t have time to find it. Things are getting nasty.”  
  
Behind them, Chris is slowly being surrounded by a group of townies. Di strips off her jacket, ignoring the catcalls from the guys nearby as her outfit is revealed, and helps Lea into it. A chorus of boos sound as Lea is covered up.  
  
“I was just having fun,” Lea says pitifully.  
  
Di looks up just in time to see Chris getting shoved in the shoulder, by a huge wall of a man.  
  
“I’m not looking for any trouble,” Di hears him saying. Before she can stop him, Zach moves forward again and pushes Chris behind him a safe distance.  
  
“Back off,” he says calmly.  
  
“You fucking kidding me?” Mountain Man shoves Zach too. The man pulls back to take a swing, and Di almost screams, but Zach ducks easily and then punches back, right into the guy’s nose. While he’s staggering, Zach grabs Chris’s hand and drags him towards the door.  
  
“Run!” he hisses at Di. He tries to grab at Lea, who is laughing with delight at Mountain Man. He’s holding his nose, blood dripping from it. To Dianna’s horror he stares right at Lea and starts coming towards her.  
  
Lea shakes off Zach’s hand and fumbles in her oversized handbag. Di sees Zach freeze and give an anticipatory cringe, and then – Lea is holding up one of her throwing knives. She waves it at the guy, and he stops short.  
  
“I’ve called the police!” the bartender shouts at them, and out of the corner of her eye, Dianna can see Chris start to freak out. Mountain Man notices it too, and looks warily back at Lea.  
  
“What do you think?” Lea asks no one in particular. “Should I throw it at him?” She gives a crooked smile, but her eyes are bright and ferocious. The man is obviously wondering if Lea is all talk, or actually dangerous. Di isn’t sure herself. She clutches Lea’s wrist.  
  
“We need to get out of here,” she says under her breath, and the four of them back quickly out of the door, Lea stuffing the knife back into her handbag. They can already hear sirens coming closer.  
  
“Run, all of you,” Chris says, breathing so hard that Di is worried he’s going to have another panic attack. He grabs at them all frantically and comes away with Lea’s bag, pulling her off-center until she lets go. He stares at it like he doesn’t recognize it. “Come on, run! Why are you all just standing there?”  
  
“No running,” Zach says sharply, and pulls Chris by the elbow. Dianna helps Lea follow, and Di is grateful that at least Zach seems to be keeping his head. “Over here. We just need to get back to the car and—”  
  
Just as they reach the other side of the road, everything seems to happen at once. The bar door flies open and people stream out of it like it's a disturbed anthill. At the top of the street, the police car turns the corner and drives straight towards them.  
  
Chris ducks behind a parked car and motions wildly for the rest of them to run. Lea is stumbling too much for Zach and Di to move fast, but they make it behind the nearest corner before the police car arrives. Zach peeks around the wall before turning back to help prop Lea up again.  
  
“Making friends and influencing people,” he whispers to Di with a quick grin. “I’m sorry about that punch, though. Violence is never a good thing. I don’t usually go around hitting people.”  
  
“It was self-defense,” she tells him. “I’m glad you were there.” She’s glad he’s  _still_  here, because she’s terrified. Police are generally not a good thing for circus folk – this idea has been instilled in her since she was a child. The fact that they’re hiding from them doesn’t seem like a great idea either, but she understands why it was Chris’s first instinct. She can see him crouching behind the car still, clutching something in his hand – Lea’s handbag.  
  
She grabs at Zach. “If they see him – if they search him – Zach, he has Lea’s bag.”  
  
Zach catches on immediately. “The knife. Wow. This is not going to be a fun night.”  
  
“I have a  _permit_  for it,” Lea says, and both Di and Zach hush her.  
  
They can hear the police talking to the owner of the bar, and a mention of the circus. Chris is glaring at Zach and making short, sharp gestures at them that in any language clearly mean  _Get the hell out of here_.  
  
“Well, shit,” Zach sighs. “How’s your back, Di?”  
  
Di fights back the urge to snap at him and says stiffly, “That’s the least of our worries right now.”  
  
“You need to get out of here, and you need to take Lea with you. There’s a motel down a few blocks – I saw it when we drove into town – but if you’re not up to letting her lean on you the whole way there, we need to go to Plan B.”  
  
“What’s Plan B?” Lea asks, whispering as well now. She looks more alert, pushing herself up off the wall, although she sways.  
  
“Pretty much Plan B is we all give ourselves up,” Zach says. He takes Di’s hand and looks her in the eyes. “And since Lea’s record isn’t exactly sparkling…”  
  
“I’m not leaving Chris,” Di tells him.  
  
Zach squeezes her fingers. “Lea is drunk, underage, and she’s been flashing a weapon in a crowded bar. And Chris is going to give himself away if he keeps flailing at us like that much longer. You take care of Lea for me, and I’ll take care of your brother. Trust me.” He’s as calm as ever, but Di can feel the urgent undercurrent. “Please,” he adds, pushing his wallet into her hand.  
  
  
***  
  
  
Zach was right about the motel. Di sticks to the streets but walks as rapidly as possible. Lea is sobering up and needs less help with each passing block, but remains quiet, and Di can’t bring herself to speak to her – not yet. She has a sick, knotty feeling in her gut and she can’t stop fretting about Chris.  
  
There’s only enough cash in Zach’s wallet for one room with a double bed, which Di feels weird about. She’s still angry with Lea. Lea can tell; she says, “I’m so sorry, Di,” with a shamefaced look. But the way Lea curls up next to her in the bed, her face trusting and young in her sleep, helps Dianna feel more comfortable. To her relief, she gets a call on her cell from Zach, who tells her that they’re being held overnight but expect no charges to be laid. Chris has called Bruce to explain the problem, and Di feels a shiver of sympathy for him.  
  
“And listen,” Zach adds. “Bruce said he’d send some people out for you in the morning to pick you both up, bring a change of clothes. And help drive Lea’s car back, since she’ll be all sorts of hung over. I thought  _you_  could drive it back, but apparently you don’t drive. I could teach you, if you like. I’m very patient. No screaming or dramatic clutching of the dashboard.”  
  
She wonders at his jaunty attitude, considering the current situation. “I’ll think about it. And Zach,” she asks before he hangs up, “What exactly did you mean before about a non-sparkly record?” Lea is sound asleep, but Di doesn’t want to clarify in case she hears her name and wakes.  
  
“I can’t really—”  
  
“If you say you can’t tell me, I’m calling the cops myself and turning us both in.” It’s an outlandish threat, but Zach gives in.  
  
“Lea had some trouble when she was younger,” he tells her quietly, so that no one can overhear him on his end. “A few incidents. She had a tough childhood.”  
  
“Then those  _incidents_  wouldn’t be on her record now that she’s over eighteen. Level with me.”  
  
Zach sighs. “A few months back, she got picked up for carrying a concealed weapon. She had to go to court, but she got off. That was just before Bruce offered us a contract with Greenwood’s and we didn’t get around to  _mentioning_  it, so if you could keep it to yourself, that would be great.”  
  
Di says nothing, her thoughts jumbled up.  
  
“And like she said,” Zach continues hurriedly, “she has a permit now for her knives, but not all cops are completely up on knife laws, so…”  
  
“Is she going to make trouble for Greenwood’s?” Di asks bluntly. It’s not that she’s unsympathetic, and she does care about Lea, but seeing her threaten that man in the bar has shaken Dianna. The idea that Greenwood’s might be hit with yet another scandal – it just can’t happen. Not now. They’re in a precarious position.  
  
“Absolutely not, I promise. She’s just having trouble fitting in right now. But I’m sure—”  
  
“Alright,” she interrupts. “I’m tired, Zach. I want to sleep now.”  
  
“Okay,” he says, uneasy.  
  
But she can’t sleep after all the excitement, worried about Chris, about what Bruce is going to say when they get back, whether some drunk from the bar might somehow track them down to the motel. Eventually she puts on the television, finds  _The Wizard of Oz_  just starting, and settles back. Lea lies as though dead beside her until Dorothy is watching the Wizard sail away without her in his hot air balloon.  
  
“Didn’t Bruce used to do that?” Lea croaks.  
  
Dianna looks down at her. “Yeah. He used to have a hot air balloon, gave rides, when we had more than just the Big Top.” Greenwood’s used to have a whole sideshow alley, street acts in town to draw crowds, impromptu parades, toured in the east as well as the west, before her deadbeat dad ran off with a sizeable portion of their funding one year and instantly made everyone’s lives harder.  
  
Bruce’s offer comes back to her. If Dianna were ever running Greenwood’s, she’d find a way to bring that part of the circus back. The balloon rides, especially. It had always seemed like a way to gift everyday people with a little bit of what she felt when she flew through the air.  
  
She says to Lea, “When my parents were fighting, before my asshole father left, Bruce would take me up in the balloon for a few hours, give me time alone. And after my mom died too. It was incredible being up there, so peaceful. Sometimes we never said a word to each other the whole time, and I would forget he was even there. Other times I’d ask him about ballooning. He always gave me space, let me cry, let me look out over the side, scream my frustrations into thin air if I wanted.”  
  
“It sounds cathartic.”  
  
“Yeah. I haven’t been for a long time. Not since the accident.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“I wouldn't be able to climb into the basket,” Di says dismissively, although it’s more than that. It seems like a part of her previous life. The balloon and the basket are still with the circus, she presumes, packed away somewhere – unless Bruce sold it off to help fund wages and insurance, which seems more likely.  
  
“I hate this part,” Lea says with sudden vehemence.  _There’s no place like home,_  Glinda says from the television. Lea makes a hissing, derisive noise as Dorothy begins to repeat it.  
  
“Don’t you ever want to go home?” Di asks. “See New York again, and your family?”  
  
“I grew up in foster care and I hated it. And I never want to go back to New York. If I had my way I’d never go to a major city again. But, well, I have to for Greenwood’s. And that’s okay; I’ll deal.”  
  
It’s unexpected information, the fact that Lea grew up in a foster home. Added to Zach’s earlier comment about Lea’s childhood, Di wants to push, ask about the circumstances. It doesn’t seem fair, though, with Lea in her current state. She hits the off button on the remote, and the room goes dark before her eyes adjust to the early morning light seeping through the threadbare curtains.  
  
She searches for a way to continue the conversation. “Don’t you like the city?”  
  
“I don’t like being surrounded by tall buildings. They feel like they’re closing in on me. Dianna, my mouth tastes like something died in it.” Lea’s voice is faint and she has blue shadows under her eyes.  
  
“Something might have, actually. You were pretty far gone when we got to you.” For the first time, Di allows herself a small smile.  
  
Lea lets out a groan and rolls onto her back, flinging an arm across her eyes. “Oh, God. I’m starting to remember. I don’t  _want_  to remember.”  
  
“Hang on; I’ll get you some water.” She gets up off the bed, her back giving her some painful twinges that she ignores, and brings back a bottle of water from the motel bar fridge. Lea sucks it down eagerly and then looks at Dianna.  
  
“Why are you still wearing that?”  
  
“Oh.” Di laughs. “Anton would kill me if I tried to pull it off, and we didn’t want to have to explain to him what was going on, so…I just left it on. He’d kill me if I tried to cut the seam.”  
  
“Lie down. I’ll cut the seam for you.” Lea gropes around the side of the bed and rolls back with another one of her black rose knives.  
  
“ _Lea!_ ”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Where in the hell did  _that_  come from?”  
  
“I had it strapped to my thigh,” she says casually. “Took it off for sleeping.”  
  
“If the police had  _found_  us—”  
  
“But they didn’t. Come on, lie down, I’ll cut you out.”  
  
“No, it’s fine, I’ll just wait for Anton when we get back.”  
  
Lea raises her eyebrows and smiles, tentative. “You trust me to throw them at you, but not to cut through thread?” She’s beautiful, even hung over and smelling vaguely of second-hand smoke and rum.  
  
“You were pretty scary back there in the bar.”  
  
“I would  _never_  have thrown it at him. You know that, right?” She looks all of twelve years old now, and desperate for things to be all right between them.  
  
Dianna makes up her mind. “Cut me out,” she says, and rolls over on the bed, resting her head on her folded arms. She’s surprised when Lea straddles her, knees on either side of her hips, crotch snugly pushed into her butt, but putting no weight on Di, careful to balance over her. Dianna’s eyes fly wide open, but she doesn’t move. She feels Lea’s fingers on her back, pulling up the fabric of her costume, holding it away from her skin. It only takes a few seconds for Lea to slice down the back, and Di feels the bodice relax around her torso.  
  
Lea doesn’t move off her right away. Dianna closes her eyes, her mind whirling, feels the heat radiating between them where Lea is pressed up against her, and then fingers again, trailing down her back, down her bare flesh. Di knows she’s scarred and disfigured there from the fall and from surgery, and flinches away.  
  
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”  
  
“It doesn’t hurt, it’s just…ugly.”  
  
“You could never, ever be ugly.” Lea moves off her, falling gracefully to the bed, and they lie silent in the increasing light. The heat in the room is already rising, but Di is in no hurry to get up to put on the AC. They face each other on separate pillows, pleasantly tired. Di is on her stomach, her arms folded up by her sides. The top is still under her, but loose. The net of the tutu has flopped up onto her back, but she doesn’t try to smooth it down.  
  
It feels like they’re traveling through the universe in Glinda’s bubble, spinning through nothingness. “It really wasn’t Chris’s fault,” Dianna says. “But when people tell the story they never seem to tell it all.”  
  
Lea waits. She doesn’t say,  _What happened?_  or  _You don’t have to tell me if it’s too difficult_ , or anything that Dianna expects. She just waits, but her eyes are interested.  
  
So Dianna tells her the story, of how Eric took time off last year and Mitch from the ring crew was made temporary Operations Master, and messed up the fly trap rigging in LA. She talks about how she and Chris were practicing, and how his trapeze suddenly wrenched down on one side, made him swing wild. He’d already caught Dianna by one wrist, and desperately tried to hold her while they jolted around in mid-air, arcing out beyond the edges of the net below.  
  
“I wasn’t wearing enough mag. I never liked to use much, even though Chris would keep on and on at me about it. I think sometimes I used less just to bug him.” She pauses to compose herself. “It all happened in a few seconds. He couldn’t hold on to me anymore; I slipped out of his hand. I caught the side of the net on the way down and then I hit the ground.”  
  
They can hear cars on the nearby highway now, people heading in early to work, the fine townsfolk who will put last night out of their minds, forget about the crazy drunk circus girl dancing topless on the bar, and worry instead about tax invoices and broken photocopiers and mortgages.  
  
“If I’d dropped straight to the ground I’d be dead. I used to wish I  _had_  died.” They pumped her full of antidepressants in the hospital and even now she remains on a low dose.  
  
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Lea replies. She moves, propping herself up on one elbow, and brushes her lips across Dianna’s bare shoulder.  _You can kiss me if you want to_ , Dianna wants to tell her, but she’s too shy. Lea continues: “And I understand why you don’t blame him.”  
  
But that’s just it – Di  _does_ blame him. She won’t let anyone else say it’s his fault, and she’ll defend him to the death, but there’s a black place in her heart where she holds him responsible. It’s why she loses her temper with him so easily these days, why she pushes and pulls at him, keeps him on uneven ground.  
  
It’s unfair and cruel and she knows logically that it wasn’t his fault any more than it was her own for not using enough mag. If anyone was to blame, it was Mitch, but even then – even then Di had felt bad for him for losing his job. Chris, though, she blames. Even though she denies it and even though Chris is all she has left to remind her where she’s come from. He has their father’s face.  
  
She says, “They’re supposed to love you, family. No matter what you do or how you treat them.” Maybe it’s why she treats Chris the way she does, pushes him away because she knows he’ll always come back and try again. Or maybe she treats him the way she does because he reminds her of Dad. “I know some people at Greenwood’s think I’m wrong, but my father – I will never forgive him for what he did. He didn’t even come back when Chris told him Mom was sick. We didn’t bother trying to find him after my accident.”  
  
“No one can tell you how to feel about your father, because no one outside can ever know the inner workings of a family.” Lea says it like she’s quoting something. “We all want our family to love us but sometimes they don’t, or not enough. Things are okay for me these days, but they weren’t always. I really envy you and Chris, what you have together.”  
  
It’s both surprising to hear Lea say that, and makes Di feel guilty. “You have Zach,” she says.  
  
“Yeah, I’m lucky to have him. We have our own issues, but I know he’d never leave me. I know he loves me. Not like…” Her dark eyes fill with tears, and Dianna reaches out to touch her face.  
  
“You don’t have to think about it or talk about it if you don’t want to.”  
  
Lea wipes away tears, but they keep coming. “Let me tell you.”


End file.
